Yesterday,
Steven
Chan announced on his blog (if you don't read it, you should...) that Oracle was waiving Extended
Support fees for E-Business Suite 11i and 12.0. According to the new
announcement, the entire Extended Support period (for 11i and 12.0)
is now free (if you've already paid for it, contact your
salesperson). I haven't dug deeply enough into the history of this,
but I don't think that Oracle has done anything to move the actual
dates.
This
means that customers who are on 11i and 12.0 (who have also met the
minimum baseline patch requirements) have some extra time to get to
the next release (which is currently 12.1.3).
What
is Premier Support?
Premier
Support is the “normal” support category that Oracle puts around
“current” software. Under Premier Support, Oracle obligates
themselves to actually fixing bugs and finding solutions to problems.
According
to Oracle's website:
Premier
Support – Delivers full system support for your Oracle
hardware, operating systems and applications with an upfront, minimum
five-year support commitment that helps you plan and budget.
What
is Extended Support?
Extended
Support is just like Premier Support, except that they charge you
more for it. All of the features of Premier Support are there, and
they will still produce new bugfixes when they're needed.
According
to Oracle's website:
Extended
Support – Offers an additional three years of support for
select Oracle software and operating systems for an additional fee so
you can effectively manage your upgrade strategy.
What
comes after Extended Support?
Sustaining
Support. Here, you still have access to the support site and
analysts. However, no new bugfixes will be produced. If you
encounter a previously unknown problem, your only choice may be to
upgrade.
According
to Oracle's website:
Sustaining
Support – Provides investment protection by further extending
support for Oracle software, operating systems and select hardware
products. Features include access to online support tools,
knowledgebases, pre-existing fixes, and assistance from Oracle's
technical support experts.
More
information is available at:
http://www.oracle.com/us/support/lifetime-support/index.html
What
does this mean for me, by version?
For
Release 11i, Premier Support ended November 30, 2010 and Extended
Supprt will now end on November 30, 2013. You'll want to be on
11.5.10.2 with the minimum baseline patches applied (according to
Note: 883202.1). Ideally, you should also be on RDBMS 11.2.0.3.
For
Release 12.0, Premier Support ended on January 31, 2012 and Extended
Support will now end on January 31, 2015. The document you'll need
to follow is 1195034.1. For that you will need to be on 12.0.6 (12.0
RUP 6), with the mainimum baseline patches applied (according to the
document). Ideally, you should also be on RDBMS 11.2.0.3.
For
Release 12.1, Premier Support will end in June of 2014 (I'm not
certain, but I believe that it is May 31, 2014) and Extended Support
will end on the same date in 2017. Oracle has also (back in October)
announced that they are waiving the first year of Extended Support
fees for R12.1 (which means you are good until May of 2015). As far
as baseline patching is concerned, keep an eye on 1195034.1. At this
point, the only minimum baseline requirement for Extended Support is
that you have applied at least the R12.1.3 Release Update Pack. As
with the other releases, you should also be on RDBMS 11.2.0.3.
Why
are they doing this?
Obviously,
I have no real information on what's going on inside of Oracle. What
I can say is that, based on customers I (and others) have spoken
with, there are still a large number of customers on 11i and 12.0.
Release 12.2 has been “coming soon” for quite some time, and,
with R12.1.3 dates appearing on the horizon, many customers are
waiting for R12.2 to be released. They don't want to finish one
upgrade project only to immediately start another.
My
advice? It is my understanding that you will not be able to upgrade
directly from 11.5.10.2 to R12.2 (I could be wrong on this). If
you're on 11i, you should be working on your upgrade to R12.1.3 now.
If you're on R12.0, you may want to wait until R12.2 comes out and
figure out if you can go straight to R12.2. If you're on R12.1, get
to R12.1.3 and be ready to start planning your R12.2 upgrade shortly
after it is released.
In
all cases, get your databases upgraded to 11.2.0.3 as well. Many of
the deadlines for 10gR2 have already passed.
– James
No comments:
Post a Comment